Users are increasingly using networks such as the Internet to access content, such as video files and live streaming/video on demand content, via client machines. As demand for such content increases, there are challenges in distributing that content efficiently and with high quality. As one example, certain types of content, such as broadcasts of live events, may receive a large number of concurrent requests for that content. Factors such as the sudden, simultaneous demand for content, and the sheer number of potential consumers, can overwhelm the infrastructure used to provide the content to consumers. Even systems that might otherwise be able to accommodate large groups of viewers may not be able to handle particularly sharp increases in load (such as at the start of a game) gracefully. Improvements in managing synchronized data requests are therefore desirable.